Nautilus Pompilius - Collective Onus, eng sub // Russian classic rock, 1986

The original amv:
   • Наутилус Помпилиус - Скованные одной ...  
The video fragments were taken from a 1995 Japanese animated film called Memories (in Russia it is called Memories of the Future), ep.3: Cannon Fodder.
you can read my translation of this song here: https://lyricstranslate.com/ru/skovan...

I love the song and this video is a great illustration for it, but I also would like to make subtitles for a live of this song later.

OK, prepare yourself for A LOT of notes for these lyrics.

First of all, the phrase “Collective onus”. Actually, I wasn’t sure how I should translate the expression. We use it when we mean that a group of people is “tied” by something, probably criminal, and if anyone of the group will be caught, everyone will be caught and punished eventually. So, everyone is equal in that group, and no one can leave it (that is why it “sullies like soot” – you will never be able to wash it away). The only thing each member is able to do is hoping that no one will be caught, so that is the life in constant fear, suspense and endless waiting for the worst. By the way, I’ve found a term “frankpledge”, which could probably be the correct translation, as the Russian term’s also appeared as a form of collective responsibility for taxes and dues among peasants. However, I wasn’t sure if the terms are identical, so I decided to translate the sense of the term.

“I take someone’s hand but instead feel an elbow.” – some people think that an elbow means that the person was punched by it, others think that it means people standing in a line – an elbow to an elbow.

“The trains were crushed here to create columns.” – in Russian, the same as in English, “a column” can mean both an architecture thing and a way of formation for soldiers, and, actually, not only for them. A well-known fact is that because of the great deficiency of everything: food, clothes, household necessities etc. there were A LOT of queues for everything. People could wait for their turn to buy some milk or bread for several hours. I will not write my opinion about the Revolution here, but the fact is that the Revolution threw back the development of the country for many years because of wars and endless repressions mostly against the most educated people in the country. So, the possible meaning of the line is “the progress was crushed, and now we have endless queues instead”. However, another possible meaning is “individuality was crushed here to create faceless columns of us”, and I think that was the original meaning.

“Some words here are only for kitchens, while different ones – for the outside.” – I think everyone knows that for a very long time in the USSR any just a bit suspicious word could lead you to the execution. Everyone reported about everyone. The whole amount of people arrested due to reports of basic civilian people is about 1 372 382, 681 692 of them were executed. Those reports didn’t have to contain any strong arguments, so some people just reported on those, whom they didn’t like. So, there were plenty of words, that could only be whispered in the darkest corners of a house.

“The eagles here were dumped for the good of broiler chicks” – an eagle with three heads was the symbol of monarch Russia. Also, the monarch and his family, as the whole nobility, was a symbol of honor, that valued by them much higher, than their lives (at least, most of them were raised and taught like this). So, as I can understand, the meaning of the line is that that honor was replaced with soulless bureaucracy.

“One can believe in the absence of faith, one can produce the absence of product.” – the fact is this line may have two meanings: the first one is that “you can [believe in] [the absence of faith]” like [the absence of faith] is some kind of a religion, as [the absence of product] is considered to be a product itself. The second meaning is “you still can believe even when there is no faith around you, you still can produce smth even when nothing is produced around you”. I was thinking about the first variant while translating, as it seems to fit the whole message of the song better, but later I found the second one and decided to add it, too.

“Here you can play a trumpet to oneself, but whatever you play, you will play “Retreat”” – actually, the military order “Otboy!”, which I’ve translated as “Retreat!”, has three meanings: “Time to sleep!”, “Stop the execution of the previous order!” and “Cool down!”. I suppose that the song uses the first meaning, saying that whatever you’ll play, your song will be over. However, now you know the other meanings. Wasn’t sure that “Retreat!” has perfectly identical meanings.

I’ve suddenly realized that I just want to write some notes for each line, and the amount of my notes is already more than three times bigger than the lyrics… So, I think I should stop here. Anyways, you are free to ask some questions in the comments below the video, if you want to.